alt-J – Relaxer

alt-J started strong with their Mercury Prize winning ‘An Awesome Wave’, which was one of my most listened to albums at the time. Their follow up ‘This is All Yours’, was well received, but admittedly, I hardly bothered with it. Apart from Hunger of the Pine, a fantastic single! It isn’t surprising alt-J have again tried something different. With half of the album keeping their signature sound, the occasional track goes completely left field. On the whole I think it’s great, the only problem being it is so short. They really have crammed a lot into 39 minutes.

In Cold Blood, builds like their previous albums. Introducing layers throughout to bring the song up and up, you can’t fault it as it’s so incredibly catchy. The album title suggests a relaxing listen, until you get rudely awoken by Hit me like a snare where they have managed to include a punk influence. Their rework of House of the rising sun married their unique sound with a folk influence perfectly and is one of my favourites on the album. 3WW and Adeline are up there as well. Adeline is the alt-J I love; familiar, atmospheric and calming, this is a song I will be listening to on repeat. The introduction of female vocals with Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell in 3WW and Marika Hackman’s song within Last Year adds romance to the album, softening the occasionally sinister feel.

The thing with alt-J is that as they so different to anyone else, I find their music instantly attractive. My top track from ‘Relaxer’ is Adeline which you can listen to here.